Hands Across The Border

Kabuliwallah,

Firstly I dont accept anything about Islam or Muslims from a non-Muslim source as being true UNLESS OR UNTIL I HAVE HAD IT CORRABORATED BY A TRUSTWORTHY MUSLIM SOURCE. Secondly, even, if, for the sake of argument, we accept that Mahmud of Ghazna was a bisexual, that is between him and his Lord and though it is a horrendous sin in Islam it alone does not take one out of Islam and therefore he is still a Muslim which makes him superior to any kafir. Thirdly, I am a big sinner myself and I do not judge the iman of Muslims who are accepted by the Ummah as being righteous as is the case with him; indeed i accept all those as Muslims who say they are Muslims UNLESS THEY DISPLAY IN ANY FORM BY THEIR WORDS OR ACTIONS SOMETHING WHICH ACCORDING TO THE AQIDAH OF AHLE SUNNAH CONSTITUTES KUFR (e.g the Qadianis)BASED ON THE ACCEPTED UNDERSTANDING OF THE QU`RAN AND HADITH.

NB: Because Mahmud and Ayaz (his servant) were very close the modern western historians, unable to accept that two men can love each other in a non-sexual way as well, have automatically projected their own sicknesses onto a great historical figure.

re: Asif Naqshbandi # 335

Mahmud Ghaznavi is accepted by historians (Western scholars) as a bisexual...how do you feel about that?...wanted to hear your view

Reply #: 335 Asif Naqshbandi

``Hazrat Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi was a great ruler and king who has become immortalised in Sufi literature as the model ruler and kind king. Rumi, Hafiz, Iqbal, Ghalib, all make references to him``.

I feel like puking all over the keyboard. Mahmud of Ghaznavi was a great ruler, comeon, give me a break.

sridhar.

AN # 335

Please read my post from begining. The reference is there. The hindu professor is just quoting the western historian, Will Durant, and the history book was published in 1935 before India was partitioned or anybody had heard about fundamentalism.

By the way the ``The history of civilization`` is a multi-volume set and has all the references for any one interested in knowing more about their ancestors` deeds - both good and bad.

pardesi---that quote from a biased hindu author of history from a college no one has heard of shows nothing other than the bigotry of the hindu authors [not all but most] when they are wrting about muslim rulers of hindustan and islam...

no references are given and no sources referred too either....

Hazrat Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi was a great ruler and king who has become immortalised in Sufi literature as the model ruler and kind king. Rumi, Hafiz, Iqbal, Ghalib, all make references to him....If he was as this hindu portrays him why would these great sufis like Rumi and Attaar use him as a model??

Aik hi saff mein khaRay ho gaye Mahmud o Ayaz

Na raha banda aur na koi banda-nawaz!

Kabuliwallah # 333, Truth # 308

Sat Sri Akal .. Talking about old Indian temples and Taliban invaders, here is a letter in today’s Wall Street Journal (3/8/01):

Talibanism is nothing new. It is at least a thousand years old, as the following quotation from Will Durant’s ``The story of Civilization`` Vol. 1, published in 1935, makes clear:

``The Mohammedan Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within .. In the year 997 a Turkish chieftain by the name of Mahmud became sultan of the little state of Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan .. Pretending a holy zeal for destroying Hindu idolatry, he swept across the frontier with a force inspired by a pious aspiration for booty. He met the unprepared Hindus .. slaughtered them, pillaged their cities, destroyed their temples and carried away their the accumulated treasures of centuries .. Each winter Mahmud descended into India, filled his treasure chest with spoils, and amused his men with full freedom to pillage and kill; each spring he returned to his capital richer than before. At Mathura .. He took from the temple its statues of gold encrusted with precious stones .. He expressed his admiration for the architecture of the great shrine, judged that its duplication would cost one million dinars and the labour of two hundred years, and then ordered it to be soaked with naphta and burnt to the ground. Six years later he sacked another opulent city of northern India, Somnath (destroyed its fabulous temple and broke the idol of the deity with his club), killed all its fifty thousand inhabitants, and dragged its wealth to Ghazni. In the end he became, perhaps, the richest king that history has ever known``

K. R. Nair, Profesor of History, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, W. Va.

re: Truth # 308

If it is any consolation, Ranjith Singh had the gates of Somnath temple brought back to Punjab from Ghazni and installed at the Harmandar Sahib in Amritsar...it was a symbolic gesture, to show that Indians can kick Afghan hiney too, not because he wanted to take revenge for Somnath`s destruction...though, on his death bed, under the influence of Brahmins at his court, he turned to Hindu customs

Kabuli

Interesting account of events preceding Partition:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/070301/detOPI01.asp

Correction: ``...we are still a nascent nation where its not yet cast in stone that we have a very strong bond which can withstand all the above (modernistic) concessions to individual/group rights without senseless violence and loss of human lives, caused by pure emotion or by political maneuvers of opportunistic power seekers. And we still donot have a unimpeachable and competent law-and-order machinery to prevent or punish such violence ``

truth #329
Looking at it as
a) purely legal issue : individual`s right of expression, or right to do as he pleases with his own property or as
b)a purely common sense argument : your abusing my religion doesnot hurt my religion, it hurts the abuser more than it hurts me(for eg ali1). One cannot overregulate behaviours, etc etc etc

These arguments work only in isolation from India`s realities. The fact is that the relationship between large numbers of Hindus and Muslims is in question, and we are still a nascent nation where its not yet cast in stone that we have a very strong bond which can withstand all the above (modernistic) concessions to individual/group rights. The terms of that important relationship are still up in the air and have not yet stabilized. So all those who want to preserve it have to be careful.

Still on the relationship metaphor a marriage is not a marriage merely by meeting legal definations.

Most important its obvious to me at least that the VHP is not exercising its right to protest against the Taliban in its own way, it has real malafide intentions toward Indian Muslims and it is by deliberate choice that its members chose desecration of the Quran and not some other way of so many others(like the other groups) to protest the Taliban`s actions. They are by such actions trying to set the terms of the Hindu-Muslim relationship based on their hateful rhetoric for which I have only abhorrence. So I cannot excuse them their real intent, in the name of the right of expression.

One felt the same way (to a much much lesser degree, of course) about Murad Ali Baig`s article about India/Hindusim which is still on the front page.

Sadhana

truth #327
I have to agree with shammi #326 here. To insult the faith of many million Indians for actions by the Taliban about which they can do nothing is an extremely perverted thing to do, in my view. Its just like the mindless destruction by invaders, sadism in desecration.

I really believe the government should get the VHP to reveal its source of funds. Only people far away and safe in Western suburbia(a few examples of whom I have met) can afford to fund communal hatred of this type in India.

Sadhana

Re: krashid #324

My point, exactly. That is why these guys need to be locked up under the law. They are on a self-destructive path, and will create a lot of harm in the process.

krashid:

if you can accuse in any name, you will do it. hypocrite.

Shammi #320

It is only a matter of understanding.

If they can rape and kill Muslims (in any name), and demolish the babri mosque (in any name) and now burning the copy of Koran (in any name).

Tomorrow they will put all Muslims to death and also will find an excuse for it.

There is an old saying. ``Oongli Pakarne Ko Do To Pohncha Pakar Lete Hain``

(You give a finger to hold and they will hold arm).

Truth, Anamkia:

Truth, urning your personal copy in the confines of your house is one thing. Burning it on the streets publicly has only one aim -- to hurt the sentiments of another community. I cannot be supportive of that, especially when the consequences can be quite violent

Anamika, the Nazis also publicly burned books (especially the ones by Jewish authors) in large demonstrations and rallies. I would rather have the VHP protest on the merits of the matter (the Quran is not the issue), and I would rather that they neither burn the Quran or attack Muslims. The fact that someone chooses to burn the constitution of India, is not reason enough to burn the Quran.

#320 shammi

You are being unnecessarily angry. Not a good way to focus your energy. Burning the Quran, Bible or a copy of the Gita is not the same as what the Nazis did. They EVISCERATED parts of the cultural heritage of a people.

I`d rather that the VHP burned a copy of the Quran than physically attacked Indian Muslims. Do you know that whenever any regional party is angry at the Center, one of the first things they do is burn a copy of the Indian Constitution?